DUNEDIN, Fla.—Not often does a major league manager need to carry a roster sheet with him to the field. But not often does a manager enter a situation like John Gibbons, who kept his scorecard at the ready on the Toronto Blue Jays’ first day of pitcher and catcher workouts Wednesday.

Think about it. First, Gibbons was a surprise choice to manage a team that had fired him in 2008. “It was a shock,” he admitted about getting the call from general manager Alex Anthopoulos. “I can’t say I didn’t take him seriously but I didn’t think he would be able to pull it off. But he did.”

Spring training: Mark Buehrle is still steamed at the Marlins, who traded him in the offseason. Winning with the Jays should help ease the anger. (AP Photo)

Gibbons would not be returning to just another middling Blue Jays team, either. Shortly before he was hired, Anthopoulos pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Marlins that overnight turned the club into World Series contenders. The Blue Jays, in fact, are favorites to win the World Series in more than one sports book.

When Gibbons looks at his roster sheet, he sees a collection of talent, that put together, gives Toronto “a little bit of everything.” Make that a lot of everything:

— Pitching. The rotation includes a trio that has made opening day starts, though Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson and Ricky Romero won’t be getting the nod this season. That honor will go to R.A. Dickey, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner who was named opening day starter not long after he was traded by the New York Mets. Why make the announcement so soon?

“Somebody asked and I wanted to give them an answer,” Gibbons cracked. “He deserves it. Cy Young. Twenty games (winner). We could have gone with any of them but he earned that.”

— Hitting.Jose Reyes, the best player acquired in the Marlins’ trade, has won a batting title and free-agent signee Melky Cabrera was on his way to one last year before he was suspended for a positive PED test.

— Offensive balance. A year after their lineup was dominated by right-handed hitters and was without a switch hitter, the Blue Jays brought in four switch hitters: Reyes, Cabrera and second base candidates Emilio Bonifacio and Maicer Izturis.

— Speed. Reyes, a three-time stolen base champion, isn’t even the fastest guy on the team. That would be Bonifacio, another player who came in the Marlins’ trade. Plus, Izturis comes from the Los Angeles Angels, a team known for its running game. He stole 17 bases and was caught only twice while playing 100 games last season.

“We’re strong top to bottom,” Gibbons said after Wednesday’s workout. “We think we have everything in place. We really like our team.”

Gibbons, 50, has been around long enough to know what else he sees when he looks at his roster sheet: a piece of paper, and nothing more.

Two of his new starters, Johnson and Buehrle, can tell you what that paper is worth. They were in Miami last year, where the new and exciting Marlins entered spring as the media’s fashionable favorites but finished the season as last-place flops.

The new Blue Jays starters haven’t forgotten just how sour things went in South Florida, either. Johnson talked Wednesday about how welcome the Blue Jays made him feel after the trade. He said Anthopoulos called him “four or five” times just to check in. Anyone from the Marlins call? “Nope,” he said, followed by a smirk that said he wasn’t surprised.

While Johnson can become a free agent after the season and says he thought a trade was in his future—“I thought it would be this (coming) All-Star break,” he said—Buehrle would not have signed a four-year deal with Miami if he had known he would be there only one year.

He issued a statement after the trade in which he accused the Marlins of lying to him after repeatedly giving him assurances that there would be no fire sale. When Marlins president David Samson tried to reach out afterward, Buehrle did not back down.

“I said I’ve got nothing to say. If you want to hear from me right now, it’s not going to be the friendliest,” Buehrle said Wednesday. “I haven’t talked to anybody since then and I don’t intend to.”

Now, his new team could not be heading in a more opposite direction than his old one. While the Marlins face the possibility of 100 losses, the Blue Jays are thinking 100 wins. Winning will go a long way in easing any lingering ill will over the trade.

“A couple of ’em were surprised they got traded,” Bautista said of his new teammates. “But they’re going to love it here.”

Blue Jays position players don’t have to report until the weekend, though Bautista, as usual, is one of the few already in camp. The club has yet to see most of its newcomers, including Reyes, Bonifacio, Cabrera, Izturis and utility man Mark DeRosa.

“It’s a matter of getting them here and cranking it up,” Bautista said. “We’re going to have a lot of fun.”

For as long as those names on the roster sheet live up to expectations, anyway.